[suggestion] Please give Sov/Champions HP on level-up

Yeah, they need some help, but since they are already planning to rebalance champs/sovs so perhaps this wont be needed after that rebalance.

second

agreed!

I would suggest something more on the line of the Elder Scrolls Series. Have a base amount of HP that's somehow based on your (current / initial) constitution stat (e.g. 2 X constitution) and then get an increase in HP each level that again is based on constitution (e.g. Constitution / 2). Thus, you would not make the constitution stat meaningless as a fixed HP increase per level would do. You would still have an incentive to increase it, but it wouldn't be so compulsive as at the moment.

Putting points in constitution makes your HP incrase faster, but even with a low constitution stat you still see some increase.

Rabenhoff

I wasn't clear enough in the initial post, Rabenhoff.  Thanks for prompting me to clarify.

When I said "Allow Sovs to get 10 HP (just a number to throw out, obviously this needs to be balanced) per level and modify this by the Constitution bonus/penalty"  I meant that it would work a lot like you are suggesting (I think).  

I'd see it working out like this at level up:

Hit points gained for level up = 10 +/- Constitution Bonus/Penalty

Off the top of my head, the bonus/penalty chart would be something like:

Con ||  Hp Modifier

5  ||  -5

6  || -4

7 || -3

8 || -2

9 || -1

10 || 0

11 || +1

12  || +2

13 || +3

and so on...

You might need to taper the bonus off at some high Con modifiers (like a max of +15 or something), but the idea would be that Con is directly tied to the HP gain at the level up (and I'd go for retroactive gains if you raise your Con at a high level). 

I think a better solution is to not give other units HP on level up.  Keep numbers in check , and have experience affect other areas.

I agree con should be a modifier to hp, rather then straight hp necessarily.

A large hp sovereign could be massively overpowered.

I'd like to see character/sovereign HP increase with level as well.  It doesn't have to be too extreme, though.  If a Sovereign/character has 10 HP to begin with, for example, maybe only add 10% or 20% additional HP per level.

Example:

HP = Constitution x [.2 x (Unit Level + 4)]

Using this example, a 3rd level character with an 8 constitution would have 11.2 hit points.  Similarly, a 2nd level character with a 14 constitution would have 16.8 hit points.  A tenth level character with a 10 constitution would have 28 hit points.

I've been playing with this idea with mods to give heroes (and sov) 3 and 5 points to use on level up. Then I use 1 or 2 points in Con for every level. This seems to mimic what you guys are suggesting. I've only done a couple of trial runs so far, however, from my experience, it is rather discouraging.

First of all, there's still no reason to make a melee hero, defense is just too random, so if you roll low, you'll still die when hit by a orge (or w/e else endgame beast really) even with high HP. As such, you'll end up using a bow or spells most of the game, and the HP just isn't really that big of a factor if you never get hit in the first place. The time that I used 2 points in con, I felt that it was a complete waste of points. Perhaps if it got a little boost automatically it wouldn't be so bad, but it doesn't make a huge difference overall in my test runs. What I'd suggest instead is to boost some of the hitpoint bonus items that are already available ingame (mainly the ones that use crystals), to make them more viable. This should be enough in most cases until something is done to make melee heroes viable.

Secondly, and this is a pretty severe problem, the AI is just abysmal at "training" their heroes/sovereign. The most they managed to do is equip them with some proper armor. This is a huge concern because anything that makes the heroes/sovereign more powerful ends up giving the player (who are much better at keeping such valuable units alive) a huge advantage. So while something like "give heroes more HP" seems like it would be simple enough to do, you need to change the AI to properly value those units and design algorithms that tell them to go around hunting mobs with their heroes/sovereign (and not just the nearest regular troops) to make them more useful later on.

Kalin 

I have been looking at alot of the XML today that effect various stats and functions in the game.  I recall in the course of achieving the headache I not have by reading and interpretting XML for 5 hours that there is a XML that controls AI I think it was AIcorerules or something like that and that there were a variety of different variables in it which cover things like farming, self-preservation and other things that seems like a good starting point for changing the AI basic behavior if that is a direction you desire to take.

Also more to the point within the XML that you are already working with that controls the number of points on level up I wonder if it might be possible to insert the same line that is used by various HP increasing items thereby giving a permanent increase to HP on each level increase as a result, I believe if this is done only +2.5 per level would be sufficent to make a difference.

If you're talking about the basic settings in CoreAIDef.xml I've glanced through those (no major test runs with modded values yet though). It seems to control what the AI research, builds, their relations and some tactical combat priorities. I didn't find anything about monster hunting, or how to influence how they go about doing it to "train" their units, and to be honest I don't expect to. From what I can observe from my game experiences, the AI will just gather the closest available force and use those to protect their resources if threatened (or they will just stick it at their border), which makes sense to some extent. I'm almost convinced that it is the monsters that actually attack them instead of the other way around, because most of the time they will just stand around doing nothing. As a result, most of the times, their high level units are mainly junk they had early in the game that managed to survive. They are also notoriously bad at keeping valuable units alive, the most obvious case being their sovereign (see all the sovereign suicide threads).

A player, on the other hand, is the opposite. Not only does monster hunting give a good Gildar return, it is also really easy (and cheap) to gather some newly created troops (say a few lord hammer company) with an imbued hero, attack a high combat rating monster (cast deflect on your LH company and they will mow them down with no losses), gaining 3-5 levels and triple or quadruple your unit HP, making those new LH units many times more powerful than they would be otherwise. At that point, the AI might as well fold because it just can't possibly compete. Thus, until the AI can be taught this behavior and various other leveling strategies for their heroes/sovereign (and it won't be possible through xml), it's really not a good idea to mod anything specific to the leveling system, unless just to make it harder to level in general (and thus harder for players to abuse).

Having said that, if you really wanted to, you can definitely do it with the current modding system. As you mentioned, it is very possible to make an item give increasing amounts based on the wielder's level. Just mod in a new item, or change an old one, use Calculate on the unit's level and multiply it by however many HP you want it to increase by each level. Then just add that item to the unit in question through modding or by adding it to the shop.

Kalin, is there a modding thread that explains the math operators at work in the XML? 

There's a UnitStat_HitPoints for each unit that I suspect would work fine to mod this if I put in something like [level*(10+(Con-10))] and I'd get the effect I listed above, but I'm not sure what the expression should look like in XML for Elemental to read it correctly.

Sovereigns should be over powered. If I'm ruling an empire I should have more to back it up than my good looks and management skills, besides death penalties and the dangers of a game over in enemy terrain aren't going to have you rushing recklessly behind enemy lines even if you are a tank, this isn't Mount & Blade (even there I got the Crossbolt Volly of doom many times doing that).

Kalin I think you misunderstood the second point I was making - there are a set of lines that I will try and locate again that state something about number of points given on level up I don't recall exactly how it worked and will have to find it again but I actualy was wondering if it might be possible to insert the exact code line from one of the health items into that same field area and cause it to increase at each level in that way.  I also remember when looking at the NPC and monster stats that each monster seemed to have their stats defined and then below it a set of stats that defined maxvalue at level 30 or something like that.  Since the recruited NPCs are similar I wonder if a line of a similar type might work for a progressive increase of Constitution on level up.

The problem with stuff like this is that giving HP at level up based on current CON means you wind up with a scenario where boosting CON early is better then boosting it later, even if they end up at 15 CON. eg: If you have 10 CON and gain five levels, then boost it to 12 at level 6, you get this:

0

0

0

0

0

2

total: 2.

If you start at 12 and leave it at 12, you get this:

2

2

2

2

2

2

total: 12.

No other stat works that way. 12 STR is 12 STR, it doesn't matter when you got it up to 12. The easier way to give HP based on level is to add it into the formula, so something like HP = 10 + (CON / 5 * Level). That way if you boot it to 12, you'll wind up at the same total HP as you would if you started at 12.

Would make sense!

I totally agree with your concept Tridus ... and actually while I started with 10 + (X/5 * level)

My current formula of choice is HP = Consitution*(1 + (level-1)/3)

so basically your HP increases by "Constitution" every 3 levels ... and it also works retroactively.

So, assuming you don't add any points to Constitution, your HP doubles at level 4, increases 50% by level 7, and increases a third by level 10.

However, if you decide to place points into Constitution, you'll get a nicer curve of HP return

Of course, Strength, Dex, Int, and Wis are all very important (especially Strength and Dex if you want a strong fighter) ... but at least you have the option to really pump up your Hit-Points.

Edit: Fixed

Doesn't that give you Zero HP at level 1?  (HP = Con * ((1-1)/3) = Con * (0/3) = 0)

@ Yellowstone_1872: I haven't played with calculate all that much, but the expression SHOULD look something like this (Note that this hasn't been tested):

    <GameModifier>
      <ModType>Unit</ModType>
      <Attribute>AdjustUnitStat</Attribute>
      <StrVal>UnitStat_HitPoints</StrVal>
      <Calculate InternalName = "Value">
        <Expression><![CDATA[[Level]*2]]></Expression> <!-- adds 2 HP per level -->
      </Calculate>
    </GameModifier>



@ Astrolathese: Sorry I misunderstood you, but I really don't think you can do that, it's a bit like saying you like birthday cakes when someone asks you how old you are. The game is expecting a numerical value to use to assign the points, you can probably do some math that would result in a value, but you can't really answer +2HP since the tag is <StatPointsPerLevelUp>1</StatPointsPerLevelUp>, and not <OnLevelUp><StatPoints>1</StatPoints></OnLevelUp> if you understand what I mean.

Also note that increasing the level up points here also give more points for regular units, they just always choose HP when they level up (if you increase it to 2, normal units will gain 6HP when they level, and if you increase it to 5, normal units will gain 15 HP when they level).

As I hear it, they are fixing hero stability and survivability in v1.08. Can't wait to use a hero to kill something bigger than a spider.

Granted that spiders in this game are rather big.

Yeah, some formula like that. Though as Yellowstone pointed out, you'll need to fix that problem of having zero HP at level 1.

Right ... I was thinking Con*(1 + (level-1)/3) = HP ... my bad for missing the 1+

Hmm... I'll have to parse that and see if I can make it work.  I'm afraid my understanding of this coding isn't all that great.  I'll give it a shot though.  Thanks, Kalin!

That one looks like it does the trick.